Inspiring Solutions - Archive

Decentralization

Ensuring a safe and reliable source of fresh water is fundamental to life. This is increasingly challenging in growing urban areas where intense water demands from residential, commercial, industrial, and energy sectors is the new norm. It poses a similar challenge to the large swaths of the country that are experiencing long-term drought or reaching the limits of their current supply.

Given your own experience and expertise, what role can distributed infrastructure play as a means of achieving greater resiliency, sustainability and security across our water systems?

Addressing the complex needs of children and young adults who suffer from mental illness is both a national responsibility and urgent imperative. Too often, the systems we have to care for children and their families are scattered across multiple agencies, areas of expertise and responsibility – leaving good intentions in place of effective treatment. Yet a transformation is taking place across the country where child-serving systems are woven together into a system of care to provide services, supports, and treatment required, especially for those children with serious and complex mental health needs. This approach—a system of care approach-- includes delivering services that are community-based, highly individualized to the unique needs of each child and family, evidence informed, family-driven, youth-guided and culturally and linguistically competent in order to be as inclusive as possible and reach the greatest number of children.

In your experience, how have you been personally impacted by the shift to systems of care and where do you see this movement headed?

Ensuring a safe and reliable source of fresh water is fundamental to life. This is increasingly challenging in growing urban areas where intense water demands from residential, commercial, industrial, and energy sectors is the new norm. It poses a similar challenge to the large swaths of the country that are experiencing long-term drought or reaching the limits of their current supply.

From your vantage, and drawing on your expertise and experience, what do you see as one of the major challenges to the future resiliency of our urban water supplies and what corresponding opportunity or approach do you recommend to overcome that challenge?

Mixing water and electricity can be shocking. That’s certainly true of the game-changing advancements, new technologies and collaborative thinking occurring in the power generation and water sectors. Some experts say these two industries have an exciting opportunity to create something totally unexpected – a combined utility of the future where water and electricity really do mix – and with very positive results.

Looking to the future, what are the defining characteristics of an integrated utility system where cooperation and symbiosis are the new norm? What challenges and opportunities must be addressed and optimized in order to transform today's 20th century systems into the integrated utility of the future?

Recent events have focused national attention and conversation on the need for greater efforts to support the health and safety of all children. How do we ensure that every child in Racine, in Wisconsin and across America gets the mental health services they need to succeed in life? Recognizing the realities of limited resources, where would you begin?

From Hurricane Sandy to drought-ravaged Texas, extreme weather events and their
aftermath are bringing into sharp focus the vulnerability of our nation’s aging infrastructure. Looking at
the intersection of water and climate change, where do you see the biggest opportunities to re-imagine, rethink
and recalibrate our approach to water infrastructure? How would you spend the next $100 billion?